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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8548747" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I almost always let my players decide whether the target dies or is merely wounded/incapacitated, and whenever there are exceptions I do my best to flag them well in advance (though this does not always succeed). In the Dungeon World game I run, some attacks or actions are marked &quot;messy,&quot; a tag usually for weapons (but sometimes applied to them via class effects) which is described as, &quot;It does damage in a particularly destructive way, ripping people and things apart.&quot; It's hard to not cause vicious wounds with a &quot;messy&quot; attack, and entirely possible to kill without meaning to--but if the messy tag is on there, I'm gonna try to warn the player before the result is irrevocable (ideally, before they even roll to attempt something).My players are generally...not quite &quot;pacifist,&quot; but they prefer not to kill unless it seems necessary that they do so (though they are less averse to lethality if the targets are clearly non-sapient animals rather than near- or actually-sapient beings.) Taking prisoners is better than slaughter as they see it, and I reward (or at least recognize) their mercy by having a world that doesn't ruthlessly exploit that mercy. (I find that most groups that are &quot;all murderhobo all the time&quot; are that way because the DM doesn't realize that they've been passively punishing non-murderhobo behavior and passively rewarding murderhobo behavior; players will adapt around DM policy, and if DM policy is that every display of mercy is treated as a display of weakness, players will eventually learn not to display weakness!)So...I'd say that low-death games are probably doable. I don't think it's possible to have a 100% perfect &quot;nobody ever dies&quot; game without risking a feel like Silver Age Superman comics. That is, without feeling a bit heavy-handed and (for lack of a better word) &quot;cartoonish,&quot; with expected negative consequences being repeatedly handwaved. But games where death is rare, and usually avoidable? That's pretty reasonable.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8548747, member: 6790260"] I almost always let my players decide whether the target dies or is merely wounded/incapacitated, and whenever there are exceptions I do my best to flag them well in advance (though this does not always succeed). In the Dungeon World game I run, some attacks or actions are marked "messy," a tag usually for weapons (but sometimes applied to them via class effects) which is described as, "It does damage in a particularly destructive way, ripping people and things apart." It's hard to not cause vicious wounds with a "messy" attack, and entirely possible to kill without meaning to--but if the messy tag is on there, I'm gonna try to warn the player before the result is irrevocable (ideally, before they even roll to attempt something). My players are generally...not quite "pacifist," but they prefer not to kill unless it seems necessary that they do so (though they are less averse to lethality if the targets are [I]clearly[/I] non-sapient animals rather than near- or actually-sapient beings.) Taking prisoners is better than slaughter as they see it, and I reward (or at least recognize) their mercy by having a world that doesn't ruthlessly exploit that mercy. (I find that most groups that are "all murderhobo all the time" are that way because the DM doesn't realize that they've been passively punishing non-murderhobo behavior and passively rewarding murderhobo behavior; players will adapt around DM policy, and if DM policy is that every display of mercy is treated as a display of weakness, players will eventually learn not to display weakness!) So...I'd say that low-death games are probably doable. I don't think it's possible to have a 100% perfect "nobody [I]ever[/I] dies" game without risking a feel like Silver Age Superman comics. That is, without feeling a bit heavy-handed and (for lack of a better word) "cartoonish," with expected negative consequences being repeatedly handwaved. But games where death is rare, and usually avoidable? That's pretty reasonable. [/QUOTE]

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